Walsh defends his farm crisis handling

The Minister for Agriculture will meet the Ministers for Social Welfare and Finance to ensure low-income farmers qualify for …

The Minister for Agriculture will meet the Ministers for Social Welfare and Finance to ensure low-income farmers qualify for the Family Income Supplement scheme during the current farm crisis.

Mr Walsh told a meeting of the Fianna Fail parliamentary party that he expected a constructive package of measures from the EU Farm Council after it meets early next week.

He also told the 40 TDs and Senators present that he would travel to Iran next month to try to reopen that market for Irish beef.

At a press briefing later, Mr Walsh accused the Fine Gael leader, Mr John Bruton, and his party's agriculture spokesman, Mr Paul Connaughton, of deliberately attempting to mislead the public about his handling of the crisis.

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Mr Walsh said he told that meeting, also attended by the general secretary of the Irish Farmers' Association, Mr Michael Berkery, that claims that he had not briefed the EU Commissioner for Agriculture, Mr Franz Fischler, on the fodder crisis, were untrue.

He said Mr Berkery had confirmed that Mr Fischler knew of the crisis at the time Mr Cannaughton said he had not been briefed. Fine Gael was attempting to make a political football of the crisis, Mr Walsh added.

He had fully recognised the difficulties in certain sectors of Irish agriculture and had outlined his response to those present, Mr Walsh said.

He expected that the EU Farm Council meeting in Brussels on Monday and Tuesday would increase export refunds for the Russian market and introduce a Community-funded export credit guarantee scheme.

He had already sought these changes and asked that any sales out of EU beef intervention stocks to Russia on humanitarian grounds would be matched by a reopening of intervention intake for Irish producers.

He expected the resumption of live cattle shipments to Libya to raise cattle prices and he was also working with live cattle exporters to ensure they had the ships needed to carry the animals. He said live cattle exports to the Continent were up 70 per cent on the same period last year and an EU scheme to aid pig producers would deal with the problems of over-production.

He said live sheep exports to the Continent were due next month following a Bord Bia promotion in Spain. Mr Walsh had arranged the early payment of EU direct payments to farmers worth £45 million and headage payments worth over £10 million to sheep and cattle producers.